The India Japan Partnership Group held the first India Japan AI and Fintech Forum in central Tokyo district of Marunouchi, led by Sanjeev Sinha, IIT Kanpur Graduate and founding president of IIT Alumni Association in Japan.

The venue of the forum was chosen as the erstwhile Marunouchi India Economic Zone, which was co-founded in 2009 by Sanjeev Sinha of Sun and Sands Group, now expanded into India Japan Partnership Group, along with Mitsubishi Estate and Deloitte Tohmatsu, to help Indian companies with collaboration and funding from Japan.

The Marunouchi India Economic Zone had InMobi from India as its first tenant which received the first major funding to India from Softbank of 200 million USD in a couple of years. The forum attended by industry, government and academic leaders in the domain emphasized the need for India Japan collaboration in the areas like AI and related DeepTech technologies like Fintech, Blockchain, IoT and Cyber Security.

Sanjeev Sinha opened the AI and Fintech Forum narrating the flow of India-Japan collaboration in the high technology areas over last two decades. Sinha, who first arrived in Japan in 1996 for R&D in AI, especially in the autonomous driving systems, shared with the audience how the lack of human resource exchange between India and Japan led to the creation of Mobileye in Israel starting with a major R&D order from the top Japanese automaker.

Sinha explained how he founded and led the IIT Alumni in Japan which is known for phenomenal enhancement of the reputation and presence of Indian human resource in Japan from all walks of life.

A major IIT Alumni Conference in 2007, led by Sinha on the advice of then Director of IIT Kanpur and Padma Shri awardee, Prof. Sanjay Dhande, former Ambassador Aftab Seth, and HCL co-founder Arjun Malhotra, initiated the process for Japanese collaboration with IIT Hyderabad.

The conference in 2007 was hosted at Keio University with Prof. Yuichiro Anzai as the incumbent president and attended by a group of Japanese industry, government and academia who continue to be a core supporting group from Japan for IIT Hyderabad.

Prof. Anzai, who is now The Chairperson of Strategic Council for AI Technology under the Cabinet Office of Japan and Senior Advisor of Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences followed the opening remarks of Sinha at the India-Japan AI and Fintech Forum. Prof. Anzai described the need for cross-ministerial collaboration in Japan for effectively working with India.

Komiya Yuji, former managing partner of Tokio Marine Capital, President of MC Capital Singapore and now managing partner of Asia Capital within India Japan Partnership Group, introduced the potential for investments and technical collaboration for Linkites Co. Ltd. whose CEO, Saket Dandotia visited Japan from Indore in India for the AI and Fintech Forum.

Saket Dandotia’s presentation was very well received by the Japanese audience on the wide range of AI and Blockchain-based technologies from India, including deep-learning-based recognition and e-commerce integration of merchandise in normal videos, code-named Toch, and agricultural surveillance using drones and image analysis.

While the Japanese audience expressed a pleasant surprise at the cutting-edge product development by an Indian company Linkites, Dandotia also presented how India can help Japan in its need for IT human resource.

Norio Ichihashi, founder of Mobileye, now a 15 billion USD company in autonomous driving systems, elaborated at the India Japan AI Fintech Forum on the need of Japanese collaboration with India in the field of AI and a wider range of IT. He presented how Research Institute of Next Generation AI RingAI.jp, which he has founded, along with Sinha, has been working on the process, including education, and is keen to collaborate with IITs in India.